CHAPTER IV. LINCOLN'S ELECTION INAUGURATES REBELLION.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President by the people on the 6th of November, 1860. Three days afterward, Horace Greeley wrote to the Tribune as follows: "If the Cotton States shall become satisfied that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace." Less than a week after the election Mr. Yancey said, in a public address, in Montgomery, his home, "I have good reason to believe that the action of any State will be peaceable—will not be resisted—under the present or any probable prospective condition of Federal affairs."
When Congress met, the Senate occupied its new chamber. The Southern conspirators in both Houses were outspoken and truculent, while the Abolitionists were defiant and exasperating. The message of President Buchanan was a non-committal document, showing that he was perplexed and overwhelmed by what he had not the courage to control. Encouraged by his declaration that the Executive possessed no constitutional power to use the army and navy for the preservation of the life of the Republic, the Southern Senators at Washington, who directed the movements of the Secessionists, were emboldened to direct them to withdraw from the Union and organize a Confederacy. Meanwhile some of them were to remain in Congress to defeat all hostile legislation.
Senator Seward, who assumed the leadership of the Republicans in Congress, had been correctly described by Henry Clay as "a man of no convictions." He had not that magnetic mind which could subordinate others, or the mental courage to take the helm in the hour of victory, but he relied upon the pecuniary operations of an unscrupulous lobby, which had followed him from Albany, and sought to fill its military chest with the spoils of the public printing and binding. After long announcement the Senate Chamber was crowded to hear what he would have to say on the political situation. Political friends and political foes, the most conservative and the most ultra, the Abolitionist from Vermont and the fire-eater from Mississippi, all looked upon that pale, slight figure in a gray frock coat—so calm, so self-possessed, so good-natured—as the man who had but to speak the word and the country would be saved.
The speech had been carefully composed and elaborated, as was everything which emanated from that source. It was in type before it was pronounced. The manuscript lay before the Speaker on the desk, but it was delivered almost entirely through the power of his wonderful memory. Senators gathered closely around him, and anxiously caught every syllable as it fell from his lips. The speaker seemed the only tranquil Senator there. It appeared incredible that any man could present an exterior of such coolness and quietude, and apparently smiling unconcern, amid anxiety and excitement so deep and intense.
Mr. Seward was not a graceful orator, but there was a certain impressive manner corresponding with the importance of what he had to say which arrested the hearer's regard, and when he was evolving some weighty maxim of political philosophy, and particularly during his vivid delineations of the grandeur and power of the Union, and of the calamities which might follow its dissolution, every eye was fixed upon him. There were several quite dramatic passages in the speech which roused the orator to more than usual animation. Such were the allusions to the gray-headed Clerk of the Senate, the contrast of the man-of-war entering a foreign port before and after the dissolution of the Union, and the episode, where, enumerating by name the great men who had added glory to the Republic, he said: "After all these have performed their majestic parts, let the curtain fall."
The speech was an ingenious piece of literary composition, which had been foreshadowed by a series of able editorials in the Albany Evening Journal, published as feelers of public opinion, and to prepare the way for this speech. It was the hand of Weed, writing, but the ideas were from the brain of Seward.
The Southern States soon began to secede, and their Senators and Representatives to leave the capital. Jefferson Davis made a long farewell speech, at the commencement of which he said: "Tears are now trickling down the stern face of man, and those who have bled for the flag of their country and are willing now to die for it, stand powerless." As he proceeded he referred to the possession of Fort Sumter, and said that he had heard it said, by a gallant gentleman, that the great objection to withdrawing the garrison was an unwillingness to lower the flag. "Can there," said he with dramatic effect, "be a point of pride against laying upon that sacred soil to-day the flag for which our fathers died? My pride, Senators, is different. My pride is that that flag shall not set between contending brothers; and that, when it shall no longer be the common flag of the country, it shall be folded up and laid away, like a vesture no longer used; that is shall be kept as a sacred memento of the past, to which each of us can make a pilgrimage and remember the glorious days in which we were born." In concluding his remarks, Mr. Davis invoked the Senators so to act that "the Angel of Peace might spread her wings, through it be over divided States; and the sons of the sires of the Revolution might still go on in the friendly intercourse with each other, ever renewing the memories of a common origin; the sections by the diversity of their products and habits, acting and reacting beneficially, the commerce of each might swell the prosperity of both, and the happiness of all be still interwoven together. If there cannot be peace," he said, "Mississippi's gallant sons will stand like a wall of fire around their State, and I go hence, not in hostility to you, but in love and allegiance to her, to take my place among her sons, be it for good or for evil."
Senator Clingman, of North Carolina, who was one of the last to leave, compared the seceders to representative of the "ten tribes of Israel!" Senator Hale, that genial hard-hitter, replied: "Ten tribes," said he, "did go out from the kingdom of Israel, but the ark of the living God remained with the tribe of Judah!" This was loudly applauded by the Republicans in the Senate galleries, and the presiding officer had to pound lustily with his mallet to secure order. Then Mr. Hale proceeded:
"I think the galleries ought to be excused for applauding a reference made to the Scriptures. I say, there is where the ark of the covenant remained. What became of the ten tribes? They have gone, God only knows where, and nobody else. It is a matter of speculation, what became of them—whether they constitute the Pottawatomies or some other tribe of savages. But the suggestion of the Senator from North Carolina is full of meaning. There were ten tribes went out, and remember, they went out wandering. They left the ark and the empire behind them. They went, as I said before, God only knows where. But, sir, I do hope and pray that this comparison, so eloquent and instructive, suggested by the honorable Senator, may not be illustrated in the fate of these other tribes that are going out from the household of Israel."
Late in January, 1861, the Legislature of Virginia proposed the appointment of commissioners, by each State, to meet at Washington on the 4th day of February, and devise, if practicable, a plan for settling the pending difficulties between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States. This was at first met with a howl of opposition from the Northern Abolitionists, who feared that it might lead to another compromise, but they soon changed front, and urged the Governors of their respective States to send pronounced anti-slavery delegations. Twenty-one States were represented by gentlemen who had nearly all filled high political stations, and who possessed ripe experience, wisdom, dignity, and weight of character. John Tyler was elected president, and the "Peace Congress," as the organization styled itself, sat with great formality in the old Presbyterian Church, which had been converted into a hall attached to Willard's Hotel. A long series of resolutions was discussed and adopted, but they were not of as much value as the paper on which they were written.
Meanwhile, Captain Stone, on the staff of General Scott, had organized the militia of the District of Columbia, and as the birthday of Washington approached, they made arrangements for a parade, with two batteries of light artillery stationed at the Arsenal. Against this parade Mr. Tyler protested, and wrote a letter to the President, sharply rebuking him for having permitted the parade. Mr. Buchanan excused himself, saying that he "found it impossible to prevent two or three companies of regulars from joining in the procession with the volunteers without giving offense to the tens of thousands of people who had assembled to witness the parade." Mr. Seward adroitly availed himself of the reverence for the "old flag" which had been awakened by Daniel Webster in his speeches in defense of the Union, and, in accordance with his suggestion, the "stars and stripes" were freely displayed, evoking that love of country which is so vital a principle in the American heart.
After the withdrawal of the Southern members of the Cabinet had compelled Mr. Buchanan to fill their places, General John A. Dix, the new Secretary of the Treasury, sent Mr. W. Hemphill Jones, a amiable old clerk, who wore a sandy wig, to New Orleans, with instructions to secure, if possible, the bullion in the United States Mint there. Soon after Mr. Jones had arrived at New Orleans, he informed the Secretary that Captain Brushwood, who commanded the United States revenue cutter there, had refused to obey his orders as a special agent of the Department, and mediated going over to the Secessionists. Whereupon the Secretary telegraphed to Jones to take possession of the revenue cutter, adding, "If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot." This message never reached New Orleans, but it was made public, and received by the Northern people as an assurance that the Union would be defended. To those who knew the estimable old gentleman to whom the message was sent, the idea of his shooting down Captain Brushwood, or any one else, was simply ridiculous. Indeed, he thanked his stars that he was able to get back to Washington unharmed.
The electoral votes for President and Vice-President were counted in the hall of the House on Wednesday, the 13th of February, 1861. Vice-President Breckinridge presided over the two Houses "in Congress assembled," and announced the result.
As the year advanced the alienation of the sections increased, and the spirit of fraternity was so far extinguished as to close the minds and hearts of the people at the North and at the South to the admission of any adjustment which would be honorable and satisfactory to all conservative citizens. The Government of the Confederate States was formally inaugurated at Montgomery, Alabama, with Jefferson Davis as its President, and Alexander H. Stephens as its Vice-President. Throughout the old South the new flag was flung to the breeze, and the old flag was as generally rejected. The State Sovereignty, about which so much had been said, thenceforth stood in abeyance to the supreme authority of the new Government, which was clothed with all the powers of peace and war and of civil administration. Hostilities had virtually been declared, for, as the States seceded, the Confederates had seized the arsenals, the navy yards, the mints, the custom-houses, and the post-offices, while many officials—civil, military, and naval—had unceremoniously left the service of the United States to enter that of the Confederate States.
[Facsimile] John PHale JOHN PARKER HALE was born at Rochester, New Hampshire, March 31st, 1806; was a Representative from New Hampshire 1843-1845; was United States Senator, 1847-1853, and again, 1855-1865; was Minister to Spain, 1865-1869; and died at Dover, New Hampshire, November 18th, 1873.